Technical Information

Developer: Fiction Factory Games
Publisher: PQube Limited
Release Date: February 12, 2019

Arcade Spirits is a visual novel and dating sim whose story revolves around a person who starts working at an arcade and meets people from the gaming community, each with a completely different profile: a pro player, a retro game fanatic, someone obsessed with a single machine, and more.

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole

Graphics and UI

The art is very beautiful, and the characters are well differentiated! I thought that was really cool.
There are only two things I didn’t like: the backgrounds and the artwork of the secondary characters. Instead of being hand-drawn, all the backgrounds were modeled in 3D, which breaks the overall art style of the game.

As for the secondary characters, for some reason, they aren’t as well shaded as the main characters. Although this may be subtle, it also disrupts the game’s visual consistency, making everything feel like it has a different visual identity.

The menu is easy to understand, and you can customize the dialogue box borders. In addition, you can save at any time, and the game offers numerous save slots. When you finish each chapter, the game also asks if you want to save your progress.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

The main dialogues are fully voiced, adding much more emotion and personality to each character.
The music is heavily influenced by vaporwave, creating a calm atmosphere during gameplay.

Gameplay

The game makes many references to classic titles, which makes the experience very immersive and especially interesting for fans of old games.

At the beginning of the game, you create your character by choosing their gender (or none) and appearance. All characters at the arcade are romanceable, making the game inclusive for straight, bisexual, and gay players.

You start working at the arcade and gradually get to know the people who work there. The game offers many dialogue options, and I found it really interesting that each response emphasizes a specific type of humor (amiable, explosive, neutral, etc.). At the end of each chapter, a small graph shows which character is most likely to accept your advances and which type of humor predominates in your choices.

The story has a good pace, but personally, I felt it dragged in some parts (if you enjoy long dialogues that don’t add much to the story, you might like it). Romance happens sooner than you might expect, and you should be prepared for a plot twist that completely changes the game’s direction.

At first, I thought the game focused heavily on romance, but that’s not the case. It mainly explores the protagonist’s fears and feelings about their professional life, many of which are shaped by the player’s choices.

Replayability and Game Retention

Unlike most indie visual novels, the game isn’t very short. It took me around eight hours to finish.
Since romance isn’t the main focus, I wasn’t particularly excited to replay it with other characters. However, for players who enjoy exploring every possible outcome and unlocking all achievements, the game will definitely provide many more hours of content and be worth it.